The Lumbermill Situation: Bartholomew's Retelling
'' It all began with Grunbar asking the adventuring patrons for help with escorting the lumberjacks into the forest to protect them from any dangers that could come upon them. A few familiar faces threw their hats into help, Murdock, Bobby, Jarion all volunteered themselves to run protection for the woodcutters. I prepared a quick scry to see how they would fair....The Five of Wands appeared out of the cards. The Five of Wands speaks of disagreements and struggles depending on the situation, I found it odd with the people who were going to help the lumberjacks....until that snake woman with the impossible name appeared and invited herself along. I then knew I had to go, for the safety of the group as I heard what had transpired when she went on an expedition with Gir...may his soul rest easy.'' We set out the following morning being directed to where the lumberjacks were working, as we began to head out a giant......I want to say bugbear?( I am still uncertain) came out of the woods and came over to us, I instinctively drew a card and got ready for combat, as I assumed this was the threat to the woodcutters that Grunbar warned us about. Grunbar jumped in and introduced us to Terry, It looked like most of the party was familiar with him...her? It seems that you miss a lot when you are on the opposite side of the camp for too long. Grunbar described the problem, the lumberjacks had retreated to town yesterday, they said they were accosted by something large and humanoid in shaped. I assumed Orcs but I had not seen any on the island since we arrived. He pointed us in the direction towards the west, Terry had been in the forest scouting the path and returned and it led us to the clearing where the lumberjacks were. The path leading to the clearing was quite and uneventful, though I was keeping and eye on the snake woman as we walked. We reached the clearing rather quickly, at first there was nothing other than the remnants of the camp the lumbejacks left. It was the snake woman's pet....devil that alerted us to some thing hiding in the trees. She then cast a sleep spell on one of the trees causing a woman dressed in primal rags to fall out. Soon we were set upon by around seven or eight humans, equally dressed as the woman who fell from the tree. It appears that we have set foot upon some tribe's territory and there was no talking our way out of this fight, these tribesmen were out for blood. It was a hard fought battle, but through Terry and Murdock keeping these berserkers at bay the rest of us were able to take them down. Unfortunate but necessary to stay alive. I attempted to keep an eye on the snake woman through out the fight. She appeared to delight in the death of these humans, she tried on numerous occasions to jump on to some of these people with vials of toxins on her body, doing so would of possibly killed some of our commrads. After the combat had ended Murdock had gone down from what looked like a Thunderwave, I did some basic triage on the dwarf to stablize him and keep him breathing. The rest of them went off to interrogate the last surviving member that was slumbering by the tree. I could here them attempt to talk to the woman, I heard words of sympathy and a bit of bickering but I didn't pay to much attention. I attempted to forsee how Murdock would fair after the battle, the cards showed me the Star, an omen of hope and good fortune which put me at ease. After their attempts of what I believe to be diplomacy the rest of the group came back to tell me of what happened, before they had come I had set up a more complex fortune telling ritual to see of what is to come, as I flipped the tell card I saw again the Five of Wands: strife, complications, and struggles not a good sign. Jarion relayed what had occurred, that they let the woman go to speak to her tribal elders that we meant them no harm, we just needed wood for our structures. However what he then said had me on edge, he said that a hooded figure had told these tribesmen that we were here to cause harm and destruction to their forests. What kind of person would wish ill will upon us?! Was it someone from the camp that has an ulterior motive? Perhaps someone who knows the secrets of this land and wants the camp out of the picture? Or perhaps powerful magics have taken one of us as a thrall to do their bidding. This is a matter that we must investigate further. Though for now we waited until the tribes men came back to pick up their dead. As we waited for a few hours, the snake woman began to chant in Abyssal or Infernal, some blasted language that deals with fiends, it sort of put me off ease. Though during that time Murdock recovered and was looking rough but good enough to walk. The woman then returned with some of her elders, they had discussed what had happened and confirmed what the woman told us. A hooded figure is was manipulating events behind the scenes, attempting put us against each other for some unknown goal, however we were able to converse in a civil manner and they gave us their blessing to set up a lumber mill in this part of the forest to use as we need. We will do what we can to not encroach further on these people's lands, though I did recommend that they send an envoy to us as an ambassador to their people and we do the same so that we may strengthen our bond too each other and to understand each other better as allies. Their envoy should be arriving any day now, and soon we shall have another people to call friends on these savage lands. As we returned we talked to Grunbar of our success, though I still believe that snake woman is doing more harm that good around this place. I detest bloodshed but I know when killing is necessary, she seems to enjoy destruction and murder, I will bring my findings and thoughts to the expedition leader to see how we can remedy this. Perhaps counselling or possibly returning her to the mainland where she will hopefully do less harm. However, the rest of the people we travelled with were outstanding fighters and well adjusted people...even Terry. Once you get to know...him, he is very likable and pretty friendly. So long as you don't make him angry. I had also just recently met both Jarion and Bobby, both of them seem to have good heads on their shoulders and would be proud to call them allies, and of course there's brave and tough-as-nails Murdock. Based on the reading I did earlier I can tell things will not get easier, but at least for now we can rest easy knowing that we won't be killed by these powerful berserkers we fought, and hopefully something will come of their envoy coming to our settlement.